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December 18th, 2009 | News, The Written World
Amongst a few things, 2009 for me will be the year of the lists. Becoming familiar with any community of interest requires information, and the best way to “inscribe oneself” into a narrative is first of all through the opinion of others. Over time we can question those bias and change ourselves, but for now these opinions are a basic and useful starting point. Here are a few reading lists for 2009. I may add some more eventually. For now they contain enough recommendations to keep me busy for the upcoming year.
December 2nd, 2009 | News
It’s difficult to find anything humorous or ironic in Switzerland’s decision to change their constitution to ban the construction of new minarets in any of their cantons. Crooked Timber has an intelligent insight. But overall it’s an appalling and worrying precedent. It’s targeted discrimination against a religious minority. As Doug Saunders in the Globe & Mail observes, “Even as European human-rights courts began attempts to block the Swiss amendment Monday, extremist politicians across Europe were examining their countries’ laws to see if a similar referendum could be accomplished.” Emboldening bigots and re-writing the facts of religious behaviour (there are only 4 minarets now in Switzerland, and none of the communities espouse sharia law) is worrisome. Using laws for your own insecurity is shown historically to never work.
November 30th, 2009 | News
Interesting turn of events. I mentioned recently a post about eBook anxiety, which ended with the author Adam Robinson saying tongue-in-cheek he wanted to seclude himself in the Heimat of Heidegger somewhere online. As sometimes happens, he had a drive-by shot of lulz in the comments when someone asked why bother reading such a Nazi et al. This prompted an other post where the reasonable question was asked, should we read writers we find objectionable? How do you separate artist from their creations and influence? It’s the old problem of authorial intent, but the length and detail of the comments on that post are noteworthy.
» Continue reading » More Heidegger Controversy
November 27th, 2009 | The Written World
It’s all around us this market changing world of ours. Or is it?
A couple of hundred years ago our dear forebears of English went ice cold thick banana-whips (to quote Douglas Adams) when Parliament forgot to renew the monopoly of the Stationer’s Company and people were able to print whatever they jolly well liked. We imagine our own times are unique for upturns in publishing output, but that’s misleading. Instead, we keep recycling the same business models — it’s only the tactics and technologies that change.
» Continue reading » Helpless for Attention?
November 11th, 2009 | News, The Written World
Yesterday the Guardian reprinted from its archives an original note from 1958 about Pasternak’s refusal to leave the Soviet Union to receive his Nobel Prize. It’s terrific newspapers take the time to sometimes show their historicity (even if a lot of it is pre-conceived).
» Continue reading » Pasternak’s Refusal
November 6th, 2009 | Everyday, News
It is language that tells us about the nature of a thing, provided that we respect language’s own nature. In the meantime, to be sure, there rages round the earth an unbridled yet clever talking, writing, and broadcasting of spoken words. Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man. Heidegger
Well, it’s that magical time of the year again when English receives one of its few officiated, marketed births. The Webster’s Dictionary team has brought up into Anglo consciousness their 2009 word-O-the-year. Unveiled all over the floor and some. As good critics we can see what is noteworthy by what was overlooked: cloud computing, wrap rage, wallet biopsy, go viral, and netbook . These aren’t words, but rather expressions — the kind of growths Dr.Johnson would have enjoyed having a good shout about. Yes, that is an preposition.
» Continue reading » Webster’s Dictionary Awareness
November 4th, 2009 | News, The Written World
As a student — maybe at any age — it’s really hard to determine the end point of an historical movement to understand what followed. This is a concern because ultimately one wants to know what is going on “now”, and what will be next. An example most young writers have to negotiate is Modernism. While “Post-Modernism” seems largely over as an historical theme, understanding the join, as it were, to the so-called Moderns at the end of the 19th and early 20th century is key to at least understanding how Post-Modernism began. And again, what might be next. The logic being if we can never catch up fully to the now we can at least see where things started and project what might follow. But those origins I think are largely illusory, because like most things they were the product of someone and did not evolve spontaneously. History is a long sequence of people interfering with one another.
» Continue reading » The (Un)surprising Social Construction of Publication
November 3rd, 2009 | News
Historical note today with the passing of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1909-2009). A detailed obit in the NYT helps summarize his impact on Western culture as an academic. Le Fig has a better review en francais with some video interviews. The SLOG is more succint.
» Continue reading » Claude Lévi-Strauss (1909-2009)
November 2nd, 2009 | Everyday
Today’s XKCD reminds us all of the legacy of scientific interpretation. Hermeneutics has finally come full circle into everydayness.
Munro must have spent some time obsessing over those films. I wonder which axis gave him the most trouble. Maybe choosing the legend, and thus the vocabulary, was the hardest exercise. Another famous height creation of his and a well made depth episode. The Enlightenment progression has the stick figures mounted the same way as Attic vases.
In the same plane, at an other extreme, artist Stephen Wiltshire draws by hand the skyline of Manhattan and New Jersey from memory.
 the hand moves while the memory rests (Stephen Wiltshire)
October 26th, 2009 | News
Is it true? Is it necessary? There’s a new book for the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy written by YA author Eion Colfer? I can’t imagine what he will do with the franchise, since Adams seemed to have exhausted any other possible plot developments. The series is quite uneven. The original trilogy is well paced, but mostly because it was workshopped for BBC Radio. When Adams left that structure, like with the Dirk Gently series, he seemed to have lost steam. It will be interesting if Colfer can re-invent/re-boot the crew, morose androids et al.
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